How Much Are You Willing to Pay?

The Spanish Basketball Federation and its clubs' support continue to offer a product that has caused discontent among fans

Yesterday, Wednesday, September 23rd, access was granted to the website from which you can watch not only the Primera FEB, Segunda FEB, LF Challenge, Tercera FEB, and LF 2. The Primera FEB begins its season tomorrow, September 25th. Until yesterday, its fans had no option to watch their competition's games. A fact that had caused not only confusion and bewilderment among fans, but significant discontent.

This has been compounded by the backlash following the announcement of access prices to this new platform. To watch the Primera FEB, you have a monthly subscription of €12.99 per month; you can watch the rest of the competitions from €10.99 per month. General access costs €16.99 per month. You also have annual subscription options, being able to access Spain's second-tier basketball for €99.99 per year, the rest of the competitions are available for €89.99 annually, and finally, full access for €139.99 per year. The official announcement of prices was accompanied by two campaigns: free access to all competitions until October 12th and a temporary 30% discount code that each club will have for its fans.

The comparison with prices from other basketball competitions has been the cause of widespread anger among FEB competition fans. On other platforms, they have cheaper subscriptions that give you access not only to better content production, since you have more camera usage, better direction, graphics, and more commentators. But also, it gives you access to higher-level basketball. Examples are DAZN subscriptions at €5.99 per month, which give you access to all Liga Endesa games, Copa del Rey, Supercopa Endesa, and 180 NBA games, playoffs, Conference Finals live and on-demand, and NBA Finals on-demand. It is also true that this offer requires you to pay for all 12 months of the year, not just the competition months. Despite this fact, economically it is still less costly than watching FEB competitions.

What is scandalous is no longer just the production level of the new platform, which uses AI technology for the production of the competitions it produces. In this way, production is limited to a fixed camera in the venues and, through artificial intelligence, there will be more or less close camera tracking depending on the game situation. At least, that is the technology they promote and showcase on their official pages.

To this automated AI production level is added the fact that, once again, the Spanish Basketball Federation will provide content from its competitions below the level expected by fans. Let us recall that last year's conditions with LaLiga+ TV were no better, as there were continuous failures in broadcasts, graphics, and scoreboards. However, the most serious issue is not that, nor the excessive prices. The most serious issue is the silence and support of the clubs in the competitions. It is the clubs and their silence that help perpetuate the fact that the content offered to their fans each year is of worse quality and more costly. But what sense does it make that clubs don't look out for their fans, who, after all, are the heart of their entities? We understand this by looking at the FEB's own statement: "The agreement, which has had the approval of the clubs participating in the main categories of the FEB Competitions at all times, will have an economic return for each of them based on the income obtained following the agreement reached".

These were the words in the official statement of the agreement between Sportway and the Spanish Basketball Federation.

It is at this moment that these agreements and the new abusive prices to watch FEB competitions begin to make sense. So, if fans cannot count on the clubs or the federation that organizes their competitions to watch basketball at good quality and price, what is left for them? The refusal, the rejection to do so. If until now the FEB has not been forced to provide quality content at a good price, it is because the fan, despite complaints or discontent, has ended up buying the product they offered. If fans continue without taking a stand and rejecting these products offered to them, the same thing will happen again and again. This is why the question arises: How much are you willing to pay?